My friend, Jim, has been investing in real estate for several years. One day, after a family get together, he decided to let his family know about his investing. Jim decided to let his family know about his investing success with smaller 3-5 unit rental properties by sending a simple postcard to all his family members, asking them to phone him if they knew of any rental property for sale.
Out of the blue, Jim received a phone call from an uncle he didnt know very well. The uncle didnt know of any property for sale, but he expressed curiosity in what Jim was doing, so the two men made an appointment to get together for lunch.
Over lunch, Jim explained how he invested, and told of some of his successful property buys. He talked about the simple things in his business, like buying value, and looking for positive cash flow. He enjoyed talking about it, and Jims uncle seemed genuinely interested.
Then Jim got the surprise of his life.
As they were leaving, Jims uncle leaned into the car window and said, Could you use a silent partner to help with the financing end of things?
I think my heart stopped, Jim relates.
After Jims heart started again, he told his uncle hed be happy to put his money to work. It turned out that Jims uncle was sitting on nearly $1,000,000 in liquid assets, assets Jim has used over and over again during the last few years to build a rental real estate empire.
The funny thing is, Jim didnt set out to find relatives with money. He was just looking for a couple of properties to buy, but he fell into a phenomenal private money source.
What can we take away from this story? You may not have a wealthy uncle like Jim, but heres the question how do you know? More importantly, how easy would it be to find out? Pretty easy is my guess. Could you make a simple effort to let your family know what youre doing? Certainly you could!
If you want to do more deals, and find private money for real estate investing, one of the very first places you should look is in your own family. Make some calls, send out postcards or letters, get together for lunch whatever you need to do to get the word out. You never know what might turn up, or who.
There are lots of great sources of private money for real estate investing. For more on finding private money for real estate investing try http:www.private-money-real-estate-investing.com.